1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for acquiring synchronization in a wireless communication system.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In a wireless communication system (for example, a wireless LAN wireless system), synchronization for a receiver is provided by transmitting signal streams having repetition patterns known to both a transmission stage and a reception stage. The receiver can estimate the signal streams of repetition patterns, calculates a maximum value from among values obtaining by correlating the current known current signal and a shifted signal, and acquire the synchronization of a frame when the maximum value is a certain value or higher. If a value in which the signal stream already known to the receiver is matched with an actually received signal stream is a predetermined level or higher, a synchronization time can be found. In other words, a pattern of the already known signal stream is matched with the signal stream received by the receiver, which is used for synchronization.
Meanwhile, channels used in a system have various forms, such as a single channel and multiple channels. In the case where each channel is used to transmit a piece of information, a receiver finds one synchronization point using pieces of information of the channels at the same time. In case of a system that has to acquire a synchronization point for each channel (that is, a system having independent synchronization for every channel), a receiver uses separate synchronization for every channel in order to improve the efficiency of resource management. However, if the same repetition pattern is used for every channel for the purpose of synchronization, a computational load in the receiver is increased according to an increase in the number of channels in the case where a signal known using the existing method is matched with a received signal. Furthermore, if a different repetition pattern is used for synchronization for every channel, it will place a heavy load on the receiver.
Accordingly, there is a need for an efficient apparatus and method for acquiring synchronization in a multi-channel environment.